Now We're Just Making Stuff Up: A Guide to the Rise of the Portmanteau
It has come to our attention that there is a new habit we have been speedily, decadently embracing with regard to our words. We'll call it portmanteauing.
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A fiery debate rousing the Internet today is the one over hugs. You may not have known this, but hugs can be divisive. There are, of course, as many types of huggers as there are types of humans. Read on for a few Hug Types you might find familiar.
It has come to our attention that there is a new habit we have been speedily, decadently embracing with regard to our words. We'll call it portmanteauing.
Today in The Wall Street Journal Sue Shellenbarger discusses a type of coworker you've surely had the occasion to work with, assuming you've been working in an office environment for any time at all. This is, Shellenbarger writes, the "workplace whiner."
Just in time for Fashion Week, The Cut has caught up with Hearst's most famous intern: Diana Wang, whose legal fight over an internship has ballooned into a class-action lawsuit.
There's much to learn about the way we dine from a piece in today's New York Times by Susanne Craig. It follows an awesome linguistic restaurant chart from Ben Schott that appeared in the paper in early August listing a variety of the terms and acronyms assorted restaurant waitstaff use to describe guests.
Enough of you have gotten in touch to admit your own book-reading characteristics that we feel the Diagnostics Guide deserves an addendum. Herewith, many more types of book readers. Let us know if we left you out.
The New Yorker's Page-Turner blog includes a book-reader coinage that got us thinking about our reading styles. There, Mark O'Connell confesses his dirty little reading secret: He doesn't finish books; he's a "promiscuous reader." We can think of some other types of book readers, too. Which are you?
Since we outsourced math to the machines, we do a lot less active math in our daily lives. Who's really bearing the brunt of all this math-apathy or, sometimes, even math-fear? The children. The children are not learning the math.
Today in the New York Daily News, with enough time to give you plenty of room for discourse prior to your Benedict-and-Bloodies date tomorrow—say, 1-ish? No sense having to get up too early!—Alexander Nazaryan writes that we need to get rid of brunch, because brunch is, he says, ruining America.
Herewith, a discussion of a few words and phrases that have become stumbling blocks for a variety of men, and sometimes women, in the public arena—and what one should know before using them.
Of all the things one might hate as related to our fairly good, not terribly challenging lives, line-standing is clearly not the worst—the worst is obviously bad pizza—but it's an offense that galls nonetheless.
Tuesday we introduced a new form of bragging: The underbrag, or the brag that isn't, except it is. Today, we check back to see how you're doing.
Cady Herron. Miranda Priestly. What's her name, that new British woman on The Office. As one linguist explained to Fast Company's Drake Baer, you can—and should—be comfortable calling women like them (fictional or not), a-holes.
We're in a brave new world of bragging, people. Everyone does it everywhere! But the brag-brag is over, and so is the humblebrag. Enter the underbrag, the brag to rule them all.
A recent Wall Street Journal essay has some tips for being a better procrastinator. You probably missed it because you were so busy attending to all of the things you do—and well, we might add!
Today in Sweatiquette, our summer advice column, we get another spate of air conditioning debates — dividing the bill with an A.C.-happy roommate; saying no to sex when there's no A.C. — plus, how to work a sweater in the summer; and how to handle first-date sweat.
Think you're being cool and savvy and classy and tasteful (and minty!) when you order a mojito at a bar? You're actually ordering up a fresh and wrathful enemy in the form of your bartender.
It's not all that rare that people in urban places end up living with roommates, for at least a while. But what about having the same three roommates for nearly 20 years?
Yes, it feels like it's all downhill from here, but there's still time to make it the best summer ever, or a halfway decent one, if you really try.
Two things that might not go together like peas and carrots: Marriage and the Olympics.
This week, Time's Susanna Schrobsdorff took on an issue that you may not have known existed: Were you aware that all over America, and perhaps globally, people are being tyrannized by "sexy" moms?
Aren't we supposed to be honest with ourselves, and with others? Maybe we're "supposed" to be, but a lot of new research indicates that most of us are lying to ourselves "at least some of the time." And maybe that's great!
In this Friday's Sweatiquette, there is a theme. Air conditioning questions, they abound! There's a little bit of anger, too. I guess it's that time of year.
Today in the New York Times Luisita Lopez Torregrosa writes that while the top corporate roles like Yahoo's Marissa Mayer, and Hewlett-Packard's Meg Whitman stand as a win for women, the women of Wall Street are enjoying no such enlightenment.
How do you gauge each of the physical variations on saying hello that you might participate in with your variety of friend groups, and do the proper thing in return?
Today in questions of summer etiquette, we take on guests who expect lodging; the ethics of outdoor boozing; hot, wet hugs; and how to tell a friend you're interested in some summer lovin'.
A worrisome trend is underfoot, creeping like a viral fungus. The trend is niceness.
While we love summer and simply cannot get enough of its charms, it has come to our attention that not everyone is completely thrilled with the hottest season. To help you weather it, we're taking on your most pressing questions — to beard or not to beard? Do clear bra straps count? — in our new Friday column.
The Wall Street Journal reveals what you already knew: People in relationships sometimes need time alone to do their own things away from the prying gaze of their significant other.
Two major aspects of geek culture are supporting outsiders and rooting for underdog. So can someone please explain how it turned itself into its biggest villain: A giant, self-congratulating fratboy?
Women should feel free not to have babies, or not to get married, as they see fit. That's the mark of a progressive society! Except, if that's the case, why do we have to keep talking, talking, talking about it?
Hold on to your mattresses, single people living alone: "Couples may get health benefits simply from sleeping in the same bed, a burgeoning field of study is showing."
On the Internet, there are certain principles that remain the same, regardless of the breaks you take or long weekends that are thrust upon you without your approval. One of those things is anger.
To assume that an entire nation of parents is great is as silly as assuming that an entire set of people born in under one birth sign are exactly the same. But that hasn't stopped the ongoing "Where is it better to be a mom?" debate.
Inspired by a recent Wall Street Journal piece titled "Nine Rules Women Must Follow to Get Ahead," we compiled a list of eight other articles that journalists should stop writing. Wednesday, The Journal responded with a new post.
Love is hard. Romantic movies make it harder.
Are you a woman who wants to "get ahead"? Perhaps you've seen a recent article in The Wall Street Journal titled, helpfully, "Nine Rules Women Must Follow to Get Ahead."
According to an important study done by the company that runs a website for cheaters—yes, we're talking about AshleyMadison.com, which seems to be extremely good at marketing itself these days—the cheating-est New York-area town is Great Neck, Long Island.
The mother-daughter relationship may be one of the most complex that exists in all of human relations—both more intimate and also, possibly, more fraught with difficulty than one with a husband or wife, even.
Important cultural trend news in the New York Post Wednesday, from writer Hailey Eber. People do not like sitting with strangers at those long communal tables that have been springing up at trendy and expensive restaurants.
On April 3, the finalists of the National Magazine Awards were announced. They were very, very manly.
There are stats to back up the fact that a majority of engaged women want to drop as much as 20 pounds before they walk down the aisle. But there's a newer, more disturbing ante-up at work. Pre-wedding diets have become extreme.
Living alone just keeps getting more popular, with even committed couples deciding to live by themselves—albeit maybe in houses right next door to each other. We explore the phenomenon.
In a matter of just a few days, we have two different yet oddly similar men competing for our attention in the world of memes, and also in real life.
The beloved and cozily familiar Quaker Oats man looks a tad different these days. Larry—did you know his name is Larry?—has been put on a Photoshop diet.
It's not every day that you wake up to an article in the New York Post about how powerful New Yorkers are seeking out the assistance of psychics to live better lives, but today is that day.
The Park Slope Food Coop is facing what may be the most troubling problem in their 39-year history: apathy.
Bill Maher is tired of all the sorries. Today in the New York Times Op-Ed section he makes a humble request: "Please Stop Apologizing." It does seem to be getting out of hand.
There's this thing happening online. Communities of men are springing up and communicating their likes and dislikes, their favorite brands of organic shave gel and vintage leather tote bags, the way a certain pair of pants manages to look both dashing and casual, instructions on how to wear one's best collar.
New York City & Company, the city's official marketing and tourism organization, has a new ad campaign incorporating the text-and-IM-speak of the millennials they hope to engage. The tagline: "NYC <30."
Take note: The hot new trend is puttering. Yes, puttering. To "putter" is to 1) move or act aimlessly or idly, 2) to work at random, or tinker. And who has time for that in this 24-hour-news-cycle life?
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